Monday, December 31, 2012

Nov. 12 and 19 Letter excerpts

Note: these arrived after the Nov 26 letter.

Dear Family,
What a week it has been.  A couple large events worth noting .  Thursday was transfers.  Normally a phone call comes in Wednesday night to tell us what’s up.  But due to a number of things we didn’t have cell phone service Wednesday night.  Every day we don’t have it at our house due to the fact that our house is on the other side of the island from the one tower.  So we either walk down and around a little bit to get in range of that tower or we hike up and over to a place where we can get a bit of signal from Weno.  Wednesday night it was raining a little bit, and it was dark so we just walked down and out on to one of the docks.  But there was no service either because the tower was off or it didn’t get enough solar charge that day.  So anyway! . . .  We didn’t find out transfers until Thursday morning.  And thankfully we are both staying here on Romanum:) 

    We went in to Weno on Thursday as well to do some shopping, and for transfers . . . but there were none.  But, one of the main reasons we went in was to say goodbye to Elder Fisher and Elder Kearl.  Elder Fisher is done, gone, out-a-here.  Crazy.  It was weird to see some one end their mission.  He’s finished.  He’s at home with his family eating Mexican food and barbeque.  His two years came to an end.  Man it seems like such a long time.  But as I witnessed on Thursday, it well end.  It gave me a little more perspective and more drive because I do not want to end with regrets.  So there’s work to do now.  The Lord’s work, the Lord’s time.  Anyway, it was sad to see him go.  He was sad to go too.  But life goes on.  With those two ending we got two new guys.  Haven’t met them yet though.  But how crazy is this, every area in Chuuk Zone is training right now except for us and the zone leaders.  Now even more crazy, all the missionaries in this zone are under 1 year except for the zone leaders.  This is a super young zone!  It’s awesome!

    Time for some more awesome great news!  On Saturday we had 2 baptisms!  And it was super awesome.  J.S. and Hernando were their names.  J.S. is 17 and Hernando is in his 40's I think.  I didn’t work a lot with Hernando, Elder Sofele and Elder Johnson did most of that.  But they only taught J.S. one time before I got here so I’ve been with him the whole way.  It has been a bumpy road with him, but it has been so great!  He is so great!  He has really turned himself around and towards the Lord.  I have really felt the spirit with him.  It has been so awesome to see him change and feel the truthfulness of his words to us through the Holy Ghost.  And, he asked me to baptize him. :) Oh man it was awesome.  My first baptism for the living.  We went out to the small island for the service.  Elder Sofele had me conduct and talk on baptism.  Then we did the baptisms.  These big dark rain clouds moved in towards us over Romanum and it was pretty cool looking. :) I baptized J. S. First.  It was awesome.  Then it started raining super hard.  Elder Sofele then baptized Hernando.  We were all just as wet as those who were baptized because of the rain.:) It was a great service.  It was awesome.  I love J. S.  He cant’ read but we’re going to get him on a mission in a year.  At least that’s what I want. :) He came teaching with us today.  Man he’s great.  Fun times.   

      Well I love you guys so much!  Thank you for your prayers.  You are in mine. :) Until next week, I send my love. :)
Love,
Elder Walters

Monday, November 19, 2012
Dear Family!
    The letter I wrote last week is still with me.  I haven’t had a chance to get that handed off to get it in the mail yet.
 
    Well news from the week . . .It rained a lot on Thursday and quite a bit on Saturday too.  I wonder if there was a tropical storm in it’s development moving over . . . I forgot when that season was.  When is that again?  We taught some lessons.  They started a basketball tournament this past week so that has had a pretty large affect on our proselyting.  Lots of people attend.  I noticed and felt some more growth in my language this past week!  It was cool.  I started and fairly well maintained a couple of casual conversations and understood decently.  It was pretty neat and it made me more excited to keep on learning and improving in the language. 

    Yesterday we actually came in to Weno because Elder Sofele was having some bad stomach pain.  He didn’t sleep much Saturday night and just tried to sleep all day Sunday until we came in.  So we stayed with the Eakins (they are the best!)  And they took SUCH great care of us.  We got some meds. for Elder Sofele from the hospital and he also took some anti parasite pills.  So we spent today here on Weno as well with the Elders here and it was pretty fun.  We’ll go back out to Romanum tomorrow morning.  So hopefully he’ll be feeling better really soon. 

    We are coming back in on Thursday for Thanksgiving.  I’m excited for that. :) It will be so great.  Oh!  And I just got a big envelope from the primary!  Oh man I love it!  Ha ha!  It is so great.  It really made me smile.  Please let them know I am very grateful and that I loved it.  I would like to send a note back sometime, so we’ll see. :)   I love you all so much.  I am so grateful for you guys.  Happy Thanksgiving!  There is so much to be grateful for.  I love you guys.:)
Love,
Elder Walters

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